When one looks at all the countries of Europe, very strict gun laws abound. France is considered one of the more lax in terms of gun ownership....but compared to the US, it is absurdly restrictive.

Perusing through an auction site in France for various items of personal interest...I came across a mle. 1892 Bethier 3-shot carbine due to be auctioned off in March of 2020. According to the rules of the auction house, the prospective buyer/winner must provide the auction house with the following legal information....key words in bold:

Quote:

Category C for the purchase of category C weapons subject to declarations, the purchaser must present an identity document and a French hunting license with validation in progress or a valid shooting license certified by a doctor

A category C permit is more or less where all the antique bolt action rifles will fall under. Imagine going to your local gun show or auction and being asked to provide a doctor's note.

As much as I miss my home country....things like this make me happy I left. It seems since the Nov. 2015 terrorist attacks, all the government has done is clamp down on law abiding citizens, sports shooters, historical re-enactors and antique collectors. Not a single criminal and/or terrorist will be affected by the regulations.

They were able to do this by dividing gun owners and their clubs, thus preventing them from mounting a more effective legal challenge. I see the same tactic happening here with the implementation of "Red Flag" laws. I don't think very many gun owners in America realize how it is happening.

When one looks at all the countries of Europe, very strict gun laws abound. France is considered one of the more lax in terms of gun ownership....but compared to the US, it is absurdly restrictive.

Perusing through an auction site in France for various items of personal interest...I came across a mle. 1892 Bethier 3-shot carbine due to be auctioned off in March of 2020. According to the rules of the auction house, the prospective buyer/winner must provide the auction house with the following legal information....key words in bold:

A category C permit is more or less where all the antique bolt action rifles will fall under. Imagine going to your local gun show or auction and being asked to provide a doctor's note.

As much as I miss my home country....things like this make me happy I left. It seems since the Nov. 2015 terrorist attacks, all the government has done is clamp down on law abiding citizens, sports shooters, historical re-enactors and antique collectors. Not a single criminal and/or terrorist will be affected by the regulations.

They were able to do this by dividing gun owners and their clubs, thus preventing them from mounting a more effective legal challenge. I see the same tactic happening here with the implementation of "Red Flag" laws. I don't think very many gun owners in America realize how it is happening.

What's worse is that France was occupied not too long ago. At least the liberals here in the US are just ignorant without a clue what the real world is like... which is pretty disgraceful considering how smart they think they are. I see France and see a country that believes it's fighting days are behind them... meanwhile Russia and China are solely focused on getting bigger and stronger... they know who their enemies are.

What's worse is that France was occupied not too long ago. At least the liberals here in the US are just ignorant without a clue what the real world is like... which is pretty disgraceful considering how smart they think they are. I see France and see a country that believes it's fighting days are behind them... meanwhile Russia and China are solely focused on getting bigger and stronger... they know who their enemies are.

Bloomberg's presidential candidacy isn't the concern. I doubt he has much chance. (And I hope I'm not wrong.)

The Bloomberg problem is all the state-level "grass roots" organizations he has created and funded. That's where the big push to change state gun laws is coming from ... Bloomberg money. He and his "team" have figured out that they probably can't/won't get what they want by way of federal legislation, so they have shifted focus to whittling away at gun rights one (or two or three) state(s) at a time. Yes, by all means be vigilant, because this WILL be coming to your state soon, if it's not already there.

As Margaret Thatcher said,
"Europe was created by history, America was created by philosophy."
I have been reading about France during the Occupation, read one account where a couple of Parisians armed with a hammer and a blackjack ambushed a German officer-to get his pistol. There was the OSS designed Liberator pistol which was never issued it seems, interesting to speculate how a resistance movement would operate with 3-D printing.
I read a story from the PRC which said a police station in a rural area had one handgun for 20 officers.

The guns in China and Russia will be free... but they will come with officers that have their guns pointing at their backs.

I think NATO has given these European countries a false sense of security. They think the US is going to save them again.... meanwhile all they do is crap on America and become even more socialist and soon to be energy dependent on Russia. The more restrictive their gun laws are, the easier it will be for them to surrender... Again.

Imagine going to your local gun show or auction and being asked to provide a doctor's note.

I saw this coming down the pike ~ 20 years ago.
When I posted my take on doctors vs our status as a gun owner & how they were taking an ever expanding role in their ability to disarm us - - I was ridiculed to the point by fellow members here that I quit posting for a while.

had a clause that required gun purchasers to waive their privacy rights under HIPAA

Spats, you are essentially correct, but it's "has a clause..", not "had".

That law, defeated several times in the state legislature was passed by voter initiative, due to a heavy ad campaign aimed at the metro Seattle area, repeatedly claiming the law was needed to keep gun out of the hands of domestic abusers, (a lie) and not really mentioning anything else in it. ONLY the 5 counties in the I-5 corridor passed it, the rest of the state voted it down, but those 5 counties had enough voters passing it to make it the law for the entire state.

That law contains nearly the entire anti-gun wish list, short of an actual ban.
Part of it went into effect Jan1 2019, the rest July 1 2019.

The part you are referring to are sections that REQUIRE a number of things most people would find objectionable, but were never informed of, before voting.

APPLYING to purchase a semiautomatic assault rifle (and due to the law, that is now the legal term for ALL semiautomatic rifles in WA) means the applicant is waiving their medical privacy rights. And, not just that but also that medical professionals (not just Doctors) must supply that information to the police (or an as yet un-named agency) not only to conduct the initial review to determine if you are eligible to purchase said weapon, but ALSO to "periodically review" your eligible status after you have made your purchase, and no limit is given so, one must assume you will be checked, "periodically" from the time you purchase the gun until the end of your life!!
(and there is no doubt in my mind, if the law stands, that a couple years after you die, the periodic review will find you no longer eligible, and the weapon will have to be surrendered...)

It is currently the law in WA, though facing several court challenges due to MULTIPLE sections we believe violate not only our rights, but also basic common sense. But, until the courts rule, it is the law, so "has", not "had" is the proper term.

As to the Doctor approval thing in France, ok, I spoke with an Italian fellow some years back, and Doctor approval is needed there, too. It might be a common European thing, I don't know. The intent is that they have some level of "professional" stating you are of sound, stable mind, before you can purchase a firearm.

We've done our own variant of that for generations, in some places. Much more limited, of course, but essentially the same idea. Getting a pistol permit in places that require "character references" or language in the law stating one must be "of good moral character" (determined by the issuing authority) has been going on here since the creation of the permit system, and is going on today.

In the broadest sense, the entire background check requirement is the same thing. All that differs is the degree.

The WA law is the only one I know of that has the features of applying for purchase = granting permission to access your medical records (all of them I assume) AND requires medical professionals (which includes councilors and therapists, not just doctors) to supply those records. AND includes having your records "periodically" reviewed, to determine if you are still authorized to possess a semiautomatic assault rifle...

Don't think it can't happen here, it has been, and is happening here. In the general press, something that is misleadingly reported on, if it is reported on at all (and it usually isn't) and the only people who know about the law are those who are directly affected by it, and not a lot of them, until they actually hit one of the legal barriers.

__________________
All else being equal (and it almost never is) bigger bullets tend to work better.

And lest we think we have to go all the way to Europe to find draconian gun laws look what happened in Virginia. I never thought THAT state would go the way they did.

Guess I had my head in the sand. I should be aware that all those laws (and more) could soon be coming to a state near me, or a state I'm in.

Many of us in Virginia saw this disaster coming for the last several years. Carpetbaggers and immigrants flooded Northern Virginia to work for the government or companies affiliated with the government since Obama took the White House. The flood of ultra liberals overwhelmed the voter rolls and took over the state. Three of four blue spots controls an overwhelmingly red state. Bloomberg spent over 2.5 million dollars to buy Virginia to make it a model for the rest of the country.

Many of us in Virginia saw this disaster coming for the last several years. Carpetbaggers and immigrants flooded Northern Virginia to work for the government or companies affiliated with the government since Obama took the White House. The flood of ultra liberals overwhelmed the voter rolls and took over the state. Three of four blue spots controls an overwhelmingly red state. Bloomberg spent over 2.5 million dollars to buy Virginia to make it a model for the rest of the country.

Ya know, you can read the various threads and responses but the VA GOP gooned this last election up bigly. Blaming 'carpet baggers and immigrants'? And Bloomberg $..sorry..as you said, 'you and many others saw this disaster coming'?? PLUS run un opposed and not get elected, pretty simple. There 'seems' to be so much outrage in VA, can't help but think it's a VERY loud minority...if it really is a ground swell of GOP support..a some poster said, 5 million voters out of 8.2...pretty simple arithmetic..yes?

Guns can never be removed from a modern society, only the right to posses them. 3D printing is not some revolutionary way to make guns, it is a novel way. Any machine shop can turn out decent guns, and any one with common sense and a few tools can make functional ones, without anything so fancy as a computer or a 3D printer.

As for the politics/law, lets not forget that not too long ago, Several states proposed and a few passed laws requiring surrender of items already legally purchased. To varying degrees of success and overturning. Not *can* happen folks, *is* happening every day, more and more. And as an older person I can tell you from years of observation, it is not a partisan issue, it is a societal issue played out on partisan stages.

I am less afraid of people coming after mu guns than I am people coming after my rights, we keep the focus on guns and other very specific topics, but where the major power shift is coming from is what can be manipulated as fundamental rights. We do it with other things like controlled substances already as well as many other restricted items (consider NFA *parts*) Possession of precursors of manufacture everything from certain chemicals to certain hardware makes ultimate possession of the result illegal defacto.

Indeed, I tried to get my kids interested in politics (not political ranting on line) early so they understood the concept of eroding rights. And that is certainly called the bill of rights not the bill of needs.

I love laws, and I favor their application over absence, no doubt. But what used to be a reasonably clear outline and the ability to line up 12 people with a enough common sense among them to determine right from wrong. Has, like almost all legal games, turned into a financial equation, leaning far from justice.

Just in my life alone it went from "what do most people say?" to "Ummm, wait, that pissed this one sub group off, so we have to rethink everything!"

Words to live by, passed down to me, and at least passed down to my three...
"Don't you worry about those "Give me more" folks, they always get what is theirs."

It is why I care much less if someone took everything I have, vs took my ability to get it all back!

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